A complete guide to Audience Answers surveys

Audience surveys are a powerful tool for all cultural organisations; unlocking insights which help refine your offer, optimise your marketing, and communicate your value to funders and stakeholders.

This guide will, we hope, answer any questions you may have about Audience Answers surveys – use the navigation links on the left to jump to the relevant section.

Please do get in touch if you have a question not covered here answers@theaudienceagency.org

The Audience Answers survey is a robust, expertly designed set of questions to help you understand your audiences, as well as collecting data to fulfil any funder reporting requirements you may have.

We set the survey up for you, then as you collect responses, you’ll find the data transformed into clear, actionable insights in your Audience Answers dashboard. 

The Audience Answers survey is designed to collect data and insights from ‘audience members’ who are defined as:

• People over the age of 16, who have attended a venue or event physically 

The survey is not designed to collect data on:

• Digital audiences e.g. online event audiences or website users
• Audio audiences e.g. listeners to a radio show or podcast
• Participatory-only audiences
• Teachers and students on pre-booked educational visits
• Event or venue staff/volunteers or people working on programmed content e.g. cast or crew

A set of Snapshot questions are included in every Audience Answers survey. They are the foundation of Audience Answers, and enable meaningful benchmark creation, which in turn leads to research and insights for the good of the arts, culture and heritage sector as a whole. These questions cover:  

• Demographics (age, ethnicity, gender etc.)
• First time or repeat visitors.
• Where visitors came from
• Who they visited with
• Opinions and ratings

Example Snapshot surveys

Please note the questions included vary slightly depending on your UK nation, and the type of cultural organisation. See examples of each type below.

England:  For venue-based organisations to use year-round 
View survey >

England: For venue-based organisations to use year-round (Illuminate compatible version for Arts Council England NPOs)
View survey > 

England: For festivals and one-off events
View survey >

England: For festivals and one-off events (Illuminate compatible version for Arts Council England NPOs) 
View survey >

Scotland: For venue-based organisations to use year-round
View survey > 

Scotland: For festivals and one-off events: 
View survey >

Wales: For venue-based organisations to use year-round:
 View survey > 

Wales: For festivals and one-off events:
View survey > 

As well as the Snapshot questions, you can add optional questions to your survey.

Our huge library of optional questions covers topics such as:

• How did people travel to your venue / event?
• How did people hear about the event?
• Would they consider donating, or becoming a member?
• How do they perceive your organisation’s impact on the community?
  and much more

See all optional questions >

If none of these questions are quite right for you, it is also possible to add questions using your own wording, or we can design a completely bespoke survey for you (additional costs apply). 

Sample sizes

It is important to collect enough responses to be confident that your sample is representative of your whole audience. 

As general guidance we recommend that organisations should aim to collect at least 380 surveys per year.

You’ll find more on sample sizes, and why we recommend 380, in this article > 

Collection methods

We’ll tailor your survey to suit how you want to collect responses. Choose the method, or mix of methods, that works best for your organisation:

• Post-visit e-survey
• In-person via tablet
• In person via paper surveys
• QR code
   

Post-visit e-survey
This method requires audience contact information obtained via a box office or from staff or volunteers collecting email addresses from visitors, throughout the year. We will provide a survey link to include in your post-visit emails. It’s recommended that surveys are sent out reasonably close to the time of attendance so that bookers will be able to remember their visit more accurately. 

When using box office information to send out the survey you may want to consider structuring your sampling to avoid survey fatigue from your more regular attendees. 

Pros: 

• Cheaper to resource as no interviewers are required to carry out the survey
• Can include a higher number of questions than the face-to-face survey
• No data entry required
• Real-time update of responses on Audience Answers

Cons:

• Low response rates are common
• Sample likely to be biased, unless completion of the e-survey is incentivised
• Time required to set up email send out

In-person via tablet

This method is interviewer-led and will require you to recruit and manage your own staff / volunteers to carry out the survey.

Face to face interviewing provides the best quality data and is likely to result in a more representative sample of your audience. In order to ensure a large and representative sample, the survey responses should be collected consistently throughout your full year of programming or duration of your event. This approach works well for organisations that have a steady flow of visitors. It may be less appropriate for organisations whose audience members arrive and leave within short time windows e.g. theatres, which minimises the opportunity to carry out the surveys. 

Audience Answers has an integrated survey app that allows you to collect survey responses both online and offline. As it’s a browser-based application, you don’t need to download or install any specialist software. All you need to do to get started is click on the survey link provided, within Wi-Fi range. As long as you have accessed the link once online, you can then switch to offline data collection. All responses are stored securely within your browsers cache. Once the tablet is back within Wi-Fi range, it can be synced and responses uploaded to Audience Answers. 

Pros: 

• Gives good quality data
• Most likely to provide a representative sample
• Can provide staff/volunteers with useful transferable skills
• Response rates are known during the event
• Real-time update of responses on Audience Answers
• No post interview data entry required

Cons:

• Interviewers require training
• Not appropriate for all events

Further guidance for those using tablet surveys:
Collecting data via the Audience Answers tablet survey >
How to recruit, train and manage fieldworkers >

In person via paper surveys

We recommend that face-to-face surveys are collected via a tablet. If this is not an option for your organisation, you can choose to conduct your survey via a paper survey.  We will provide a PDF for you to print.

Surveys collected will have to be input to Audience Answers via a link we will provide at the point of set up.

Pros: 

• Gives good quality data
• Most likely to provide a representative sample
• Can provide staff/volunteers with useful transferable skills
• Response rates are known during the event

Cons:

• Interviewers require training
• Not appropriate for all events
• Data entry is time consuming to complete
• Data not available on Audience Answers until entered

Further guidance for those using paper surveys:
How to recruit, train and manage fieldworkers >

QR code

We’ll set up your survey as an online link, you can then use a QR code generator to convert it to a QR code which can be printed on posters, leaflets, or signage. 

Pros: 

• Useful if you don’t collect email addresses and can’t sent out a post-visit email.
• Cheaper to resource as no interviewers are required to carry out the survey
• Can include a higher number of questions than the face-to-face survey
• No data entry required
• Real-time update of responses on Audience Answers

Cons:

• Dependent on visitors having a smartphone
• Low response rates are common
• Sample likely to be biased, unless completion of the survey is incentivised

If your organisation doesn’t already have one, we will create an Audience Answers dashboard during the survey set up process. This is secure, and only accessible by you, and any colleagues you choose to give permission to. 

As you collect responses, they will appear in your Audience Answers dashboard, formatted into charts and tables.

You can filter the responses by date, and will have access to a downloadable .csv file of all responses if you want to explore the data in more depth.

If you’d like to see what an Audience Answers survey dashboard looks like, please watch this short video. Alternatively we run regular online introductory events where we demonstrate the dashboard and can answer any questions you may have.

Using the data to report to your funder

You will need to download the full .csv file of responses from your Audience Answers dashboard, and may need to filter out any responses received outside the time period you are reporting on.

Additionally, your funder may require you to format the data to fit their specification – we would advise referring to any guidance provided by them to help.

Audience Answers surveys are available in three packages which offer options for  additional questions, more reporting and insights, and in person support.

Find details here >

If you’d like some help deciding which package would best suit your organisation, please contact answers@theaudienceagency.org

1. Decide how you want to collect responses (post-visit email, in person via tablet or paper, QR code)
2. Choose any additional questions you’d like to include
3. Choose your survey package (see options here)
4. Complete this form, and a member of our team will be in touch.

If the survey packages don’t feel quite right for you, please speak to us about something more bespoke for your organisation

Amends and revisions.

Once a survey has been created, no further changes are possible. We will, therefore send you a preview of your survey to approve, before creating a final version to use to collect responses. Please refer to the full Terms and Conditions on your survey request form for details of the amends process.